NO ASSOCIATION BETWEEN THE LOW-DENSITY-LIPOPROTEIN RECEPTOR-RELATED PROTEIN (LRP) GENE AND LATE-ONSET ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE IN A COMMUNITY-BASED SAMPLE

It is now commonly known that possession of the epsilon 4 allele of th e apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene confers an increased risk for both fami lial and sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD), in a dose-dependent way. O ther genes that may play a role in AD, either through independent asso ciation with the disease or through modification of the existing APOE risk, have been reported with conflicting results. One such gene, the low density lipoprotein receptor-related protein (LRP) gene, was recen tly reported by two groups to be associated with AD, although the grou ps identified different risk-conferring alleles. Both studies were bas ed on clinic-derived AD populations (one American, one French), and bo th reported only marginally significant results. We have genotyped a c ommunity-based AD and control population at this LRP polymorphism and find no association between the variants at that polymorphism and the occurrence of AD. Further, despite the biochemical relationship betwee n LRP and the ApoE protein, we find no significant statistical interac tion between the alleles at these loci. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Irel and Ltd.